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Monday, January 11, 2010

In science we've been talking about cells and how our body is made up of millions of them. The building blocks of life, something Mr. Lego can relate to. As part of our study, we made a Jello cell mold today and the kids want to do it again tomorrow. I think they just want an excuse to make and eat jello.

Here's what we used: a glass pie plate, a box of lemon jello (so you can see inside the cell), a hardboiled egg, and various beans, pasta and nuts. We left out the Teddy Grahams, though. They got too mushy and fell apart in the jello. I fished the crumbs out with a fork.

We mixed the jello according to the package directions. The jello represented the cytoplasm inside every cell. We sliced the egg in half and place it yolk side up in the dish. This represented the nucleus of the cell. Then we poured half of the jello into the pie plate and added some beans and pasta to represent the organelles in the cell. The hardest part was putting it in the fridge and waiting for it to set.

When the jello was soft set, we took it out of the fridge and added more organelles to it. Then we poured the remaining jello on top and returned it to the fridge to set again.

It turned out well, and the kids were very proud of their work. I wish we had used another box of jello, though, because the nucleus didn't get covered all the way. But it did reinforce in their minds the make-up of cells and how intricately each one works.